


Back Where I Found You

by RoseCathy



Category: Red Dwarf
Genre: Alternate Canon, Back to Earth, Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-05
Updated: 2014-11-05
Packaged: 2018-02-23 11:53:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2546540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoseCathy/pseuds/RoseCathy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A very, <i>very</i> alternative take on Back to Earth in which Lister and Rimmer are together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

During his time as Ace, Rimmer had (sometimes literally) run into quite an array of Dave Listers. Motivationless slobs, DIY enthusiasts, dashing officers — he’d met them all. Some of those Dave Listers had their own Arnold Rimmers; some went without.

Rimmer didn’t know it, but his Lister had grown weary of going without. The first clue should have been the look he gave the Ace wig, which had been arranged with care on a makeshift pedestal of textbooks. He regarded it with disdain, as though offended by its remaining whole all these years (it hadn’t; it wasn’t the only one).

Once upon a time, he’d encouraged Rimmer to don it as well as the accompanying personality. He was no longer that chirpy man-boy who’d believed wholeheartedly in the Ace legend — this Rimmer did notice. Oddly enough, or perhaps not all that oddly, his hologram had kept pace, aging just enough for him to continue looking approximately 6 years older than Lister.

His programme seemed to know something he didn’t. _Uncanny,_ he thought, but it was too late to think too much more about it. Lister had already reached across the table, eyes glowing even brighter than usual.

“I’ve missed you.”

“Yes, you’ve already said…” Rimmer abandoned the sentence as Lister stood and walked around to his side. He allowed the tentative caresses of his lined face and greying hair, then somehow Lister had fallen on him, half in his lap, and they were kissing like it was the first and last thing they’d get to do together.

_Uncanny._

\------

Concessions, Lister supposed, were necessary in a relationship. If his taste in décor didn’t match Rimmer’s, well - he could afford to be gracious. It was no skin off his nose to say yes to the shiny officer’s quarters, which had a console instead of a normal table.

From his vantage point in the lower bunk, he looked wistfully at all the lights and buttons, the machinery and shelves bedecking the walls. Too flash, that was the problem with this place. That, and the dearth of places to grip onto during sex.

“What are you thinking about?”

Lister angled his head back for a kiss. “Can’t tell you,” he teased. “You’d black-card me.”

“Why, were you planning to activate another hologram?”

It was, unusually, a joke, but the allusion made Lister wince. He rolled over and patted Rimmer’s chest around where a heart would have been, soothing an old wound. “It can wait.”

“Okay.” As was his habit, Rimmer studied Lister’s face with an earnestness he’d never been able to muster for exams, plus a hint of suspicion. Lister found it unnerving — although, to be fair, he sometimes examined Rimmer the same way. Just to be sure he was real.

After they’d turned out all the lights and had a fumble in the psychedelic glow of the machines, Lister began to think that perhaps the room wasn’t so bad.

\------

“How does eating tomatoes save water?”

Lister had been acting strangely all day, going off on his own without saying why and coming back with a secretive smile and a tomato, and now getting the ironing board out. Rimmer had a feeling - actually, Rimmer _knew_ he was going to regret asking.

“It’s coming…” Lister held up a hand. “Achoo!”

Rimmer groaned and turned away. Disgusting. Absolutely disgusting. What did that make him, given that he was sleeping with the man?

“Don’t suppose you want any ironing doing, do you?” Lister asked innocently over the squelch and hiss of steaming sneezes.

“I get it,” Rimmer said in false resignation. “I get it.”

“I love it when it makes that _squish_ sound, don’t you?”

“You’ve spent hours planning this, haven’t you? Hours. This wind-up. Because that’s exactly what it is. Going down to the supply decks, trawling through the crates, getting half hysterical at the thought of my face as you start to iron your sneezes.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Lister’s gleeful nods. “Was it really worth it, Listy? Hours and hours and _hours_ of planning, for eight seconds of pleasure?”

“Sounds like the last time you had sex.”

Rimmer’s cheeks flamed. _That’s it. This is war._ He crossed the few feet between them and tackled Lister into the lower bunk.

“Mind the iron!” Lister gasped between tickles.

“You switched it off. I saw you.”

“Ooh, Mr Observant! I didn’t think you’d - okay, stop it! Stop! Peace!”

“Why are you so horrible to me?”

Lister stopped giggling; he’d heard the little plaintive note in the grumble. “Am I?” He wrapped his arms around Rimmer and hugged him with all his might. “I don’t mean to be - sorry. I’m sorry.”

“I suppose it’s too late to break the habit of a lifetime,” Rimmer conceded, planting kisses along what he could reach of Lister’s face. “And as for the planning, or the other thing…I don’t recall hearing any complaints.”

“I was busy.” As if to illustrate his point, Lister’s hands began to wander downward while his legs moved up and out. “You know what else is good, though, Rimmer? Spontanei - hang on - _achoo!_ ”

\------

It wasn’t often that Rimmer looked down and bit his lip instead of blathering about mitigating circumstances. Frankly, Lister found his guilty stance rather touching and was already beginning to forgive him for his utter incompetence with the diving bell, though it was more than his life’s worth to say so in front of the others.

Occasionally, when they were tucked in together, Rimmer told bedtime stories about his adventures as Ace. Lister always had the impression that they were being recounted strictly to entertain him; their hero took no especial pleasure in describing how he’d hoodwinked a GELF chieftain or slain a five-headed beast. He cared more about the attentive gaze and laughter he received in return.

Yes, Rimmer had grown a great deal, yet he wanted to regress in some ways, replace the cultivated recklessness with a healthy amount of cowardice and self-loathing. Lister didn’t mind, not exactly; it wasn’t Ace he’d spent years wanting back.

“Here you go, smegger,” he blustered, shoving an armful of dismembered squid at Rimmer. “That’s what we had to deal with.”

“Look what it’s done to my suit!” Cat wailed. “And my hair! And my goggles! What the hell was that thing?!”

“Well, some kind of dimension-migrating leviathan looking for somewhere quiet to hibernate,” Kryten explained. “Where better than the middle of deep space in a universe where the human race is virtually extinct? It’s extraordinary.” Suddenly, a ball of light rose from the water tank and disappeared. “It’s gone!”

“Where?” Lister demanded.

“Probably to another dimension to lick its - wait! Incoming!”

\------

Regenerate the human race, indeed.

Of course Rimmer had known Lister’s plan from the beginning — Lister had told it to him enough times, at least before he’d left. A part of his mind tried to make him think about the implications of Lister returning to Earth, but he kept kicking it aside; if he didn’t, he’d have a meltdown.

“Is tragedy. His body lives, but inside he is dead,” Katerina Bartikovsky tutted. “This is your fault. You killed him.”

Outrage coursed through Rimmer’s simulated veins. “What did I do?!” he exclaimed. _Dead? Killed him?_ True, Lister wasn’t the most well-adjusted of middle-aged space bums who were marooned in deep space with no other living humans. On the other hand, during the last few months, he’d been full of laughter. Affection. Would someone who was dead inside give such warm bear hugs? Greet his bedmate each day with a kiss and a teasing “Morning, darlin’” (the endearment felt awkward, but that was neither here nor there) without fail?

Or maybe it was wishful thinking. “You responsible for his life, but you do nothing. You think only of you.”

This was rich. “Listen, _Science Officer_ \- ”

“Tell me, do you think you do him favour? That you are adequate substitute for his dream? You claim you love him, yet you hold him back, fail him and fail at mission.”

Rimmer opened his mouth, ready to strike back, before it hit him: _You claim you love him._

No. She couldn’t. He had never formulated that thought for his own contemplation, let alone…

The lecture wasn’t over. “If you truly care about him, Mr Rimmer, you would do what you have to. Let him find happiness - ”

 _Whirrr._ The doors opened to reveal Lister. Rimmer cringed; he didn’t want to know if and how much of the conversation had been overheard.

“Mr Lister, please prepare. You are to be returning home, so there is possibility to make this happen.”

“Are you serious?”

“Of course. I always serious. Mr Rimmer?”

“Yes?”

“You have 24 hours to get your affairs in order, then you will be offlined and your data files erased. Then your hard drive will be fired into space, and when safe distance from ship, it will be detonated by nuclear fusion.”

 _This cannot be happening._ “You really don’t like me, do you?”

Katerina smiled ingratiatingly. “I do my job. And my job is look after him. Which, sadly, is very ungroovy news for you, you see? _Dobro vece._ ”

“I hate her,” Rimmer spat as soon as the doors had shut behind her.

“I like her,” Lister proclaimed with a smirk. “I like her a lot.”

“Shut up. It’s not funny.”

“Oh, eh?” Rimmer tried his best to ignore the arms pulling him backwards, but his guard fell away as firm, lingering kisses branded his shoulders. “Sorry, man, being horrible again. Hey…I wouldn’t let that happen, you know I wouldn’t.”

“Wouldn’t you?” he asked stonily.

“What, and miss out on this?”

He let himself be spun around, kissed, and led to his bunk. _Their_ bunk, really, although Lister kept his belongings and mementos in his - in the top one. For the first time since they’d moved in, Rimmer questioned the wisdom of the arrangement. Lister, for his part, occupied himself with undoing various fastenings, then shifting back so that he could put his mouth just _there. Oh._

“Dave - ”

Lister pulled off to indulge in a grin. “Love it when you call me that,” he chuckled, almost to himself, before putting his lips and tongue to work once more.

Love. _You claim you love him._ What had that ridiculous woman been talking about? He hadn’t claimed any such thing, and neither had Lister.

He felt the familiar chill of _all alone_ spreading through his body. He needed…“Come here,” he whispered, stroking Lister’s face until he crawled up to lie on top of him. Oh, yes, this - this was what he needed, this near-animalistic pressing and grinding together, deliciously close to the logical next step he was wary of taking. To think he’d doubted at first that this method would work. _Yes._ Yes, it worked, _so well_ …

_One last time._

The phrase flashed unbidden before his eyes as he groaned - no, screamed into his pillow.

_You claim you love him._

They lay nestled together as was their custom. 

_Let him find happiness._

After checking that Lister had fallen asleep (smiling, no less), Rimmer tested it out silently: _I love you._

_If you truly care about him._

_I love you._

It was pointless. What did he know? Even if he was in love, he wouldn’t be able to tell.

_One last time._


	2. Chapter 2

Lister paced back and forth in front of the doors. Once every fifteen or so steps, he paused to glance over at the bunks.

“It probably won’t work,” he told Rimmer for the seventh time. “Something will go wrong. It always does.”

“Yes, so you keep saying.”

“It’ll be good for a laugh, that’s all. Unless we get torn to pieces or something.”

Rimmer yawned and stretched his arms above his head. “D’you know, I found out that that happened to several of the early Aces. To be fair, the technology wasn’t too refined at the time. Travel between dimensions could cause all sorts of - ”

“ _Rimmer._ ”

“You’re the one who brought it up.”

Lister gave himself over to annoyance more than he usually would have; the alternative was sheer panic. What would happen to each of them once they got back to Earth? What would happen to _them_? How, precisely, would he go about regenerating the human race, and where would that leave - 

“Where will this leave me?”

“Eh?” Rimmer’s mind-reading stopped Lister in his tracks.

“I mean, it’s obvious.” Rimmer rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling. “Once you’re back on Earth, you’ll want to do things differently.”

There was the plaintive note again, this time concealed under false serenity. It drew Lister across the room and back to the bunk, where he knelt down and took Rimmer’s hand.

“Do what differently?” he prompted.

“It’s like Kremlin Kate said,” Rimmer answered matter-of-factly. “Restart the human race.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean…” 

He’d been avoiding working out what it meant.

“I’d rather we didn’t draw this out, Lister.”

Lister swallowed hard. He wanted to give every kind of reassurance possible, chase away the terrible sadness in those words. Better yet, he wanted to crawl back into bed and have a repeat of the previous night without needing to worry. To decide. “I mean, there are - ways,” he began feebly. “I wouldn’t _need_ to take up with - with someone else, technically.”

Rimmer gently moved his hand away. “It’s fine,” he said tonelessly. “We’ve had a good run.”

 _The slender red ship on the viewscreen turned sharply and jumped into nothingness. “See ya, Davey-Boy.”_ “Come on, don’t say that.”

“Because this - _this_ wouldn’t be your first choice, would it?” Rimmer went on, gesturing vaguely toward the room. “It’s always been Earth for you. A wife, two or three kids. A nice, ordinary life.”

Lister couldn’t honestly say no, and they both knew it. The ensuing silence was confirmation enough.

\------

“Now, if calculations correct, portal should open…now.”

It had opened, all right. It was also trying to devour everyone except Katerina, who had somehow remained perfectly upright at her workstation.

“Something is not right.” She tapped the keyboard. “Saying we don’t exist. How can this be possible?”

Rimmer didn’t know what she was blabbering about, and frankly didn’t care. All he could think was that Lister was right — they were about to be torn to pieces.

“‘Taking us to nearest valid reality’. Makes no sense,” she chortled. “How can our reality not exist? It’s crazy.”

“I can’t hold on much longer!” Lister shouted from his precarious spot; his locks seemed determined to precede him into the portal.

“Yes, something is very wrong. Send Rimmer through first, see if safe.”

 _What?_ “What?!”

Katerina pointed a device at him.

“WAIT!”

His projection flickered off. Oh god. Oh god. So this was how he died: Demise by remote control, courtesy of Kremlin smegging Kate’s thumb.

“I said waaaaait - ”

\------

Early 21st-century England wasn’t Rimmer’s area of expertise, although he’d read a fair amount about it. He had to admit that in person it was - okay. Not as primitive as one might think. Lister certainly looked happy to be here despite all the pointing and staring, and why not, since they’d made it back to his beloved Earth? Except…

“ _Back to Earth takes place after Series 10,_ ” he was reading, befuddled. “ _The crew are hurled through a portal and discover they’re just characters from a TV series. Knowing they will die in the final episode -_ ”

“Die?”

“Sh-h.” Rimmer jumped at the brush of fingers against his arm. “ _The Dwarfers, in best Blade Runner tradition, track down their creators to plead for more life._ ”

“How are we going to do that?”

“Easy!” Cat beamed. “‘Hey, buds, give us more life. I’m pleading with you!’ See?”

Rimmer felt the beginnings of a migraine; by the looks of things, so did Lister and Kryten.

“ _First the crew attempt to track down the actors - **actors** who play them in the series, and their metaphysical odyssey begins._ ”

Well, he’d been wrong earlier. _This_ was how he died: Demise by metaphysical odyssey, whatever the hell that meant, in a world where he wasn’t real.

\------

The bunk bed display lifted Lister’s spirits the tiniest bit. Even when they’d searched for new quarters together, walking up and down the ship hand in hand, neither of them had considered a different arrangement.

“Rimmer?” he ventured softly.

“Yes?”

“Do you think we’re real?”

“Lister, haven’t you been listening to anything?”

Lister exhaled impatiently and rolled over to look past the edge of the top bunk. “No, smeghead, I’m talking about _us._ Like…have we really been together? Do we really feel…you know?”

A quick flash of understanding, then Rimmer turned his face away. “I see.”

“Well?”

“I don’t know.”

 _I don’t know._ The emotionless response made Lister want to kick something. He was starting to feel extremely sorry for himself when another urgent question occurred to him.

“Rimmer?”

“What?”

“How much, er…how much do you think people have seen? Of us?”

While Rimmer’s eyes went wide, the rest of his face remained infuriatingly blank. “I don’t know.”

“I suppose it’d depend on the rating, really, wouldn’t it?”

“Black card, Lister.”

“They must have shown some stuff, though - ”

“ _Black card._ ”

Lister folded his arms and settled back onto the child-sized bunk, still fighting the urge to put his foot through a display. And then preferably do something else inappropriate, such as swing himself down to the lower bunk and suggest that they have wild, passionate sex right here in the department store — that should wipe the stupid veneer of stoicism off Rimmer’s face. He wanted to prove that they had an existence beyond what he’d read off the DVD case, that the longing he felt was not just a product of someone’s imagination.

It’d give the viewers something to talk about, anyway.

\------

According to the Psi-scan, the actor who played him also had a role on a soap opera called Coronation Street. Craig Charles, who he was pleased to learn was a genuine Scouser, played a “cheeky”, “unlucky-in-love”, “affable” cabbie called Lloyd Mullaney. In real life he was married, had a son and two daughters, and lived near Manchester.

“Don’t you want to know about your actor, Mr Rimmer?”

Rimmer grimaced. “No, not really.”

“I do,” Lister piped up, sticking his tongue out at the glare that came his way. He was curious to find out how the real Rimmer differed from the fake one, as it were. Or was it the other way around?

“Ah, here we are. Chris Barrie is a British actor…was a vocal impressionist on Spitting Image, which seems to have been some sort of political programme that used puppets. Hm. Fascinating. Star of Red Dwarf, of course, as well as a sitcom called The Brittas Empire, in which he played the manager of a leisure centre. Married, two children.”

It all sounded so refreshingly normal. For the first time since he’d come through the portal, Lister saw the logic of their predicament. Of course a life like his, so bizarre in comparison to the lives of these two men, was a TV show. What else could it be?

He put a steadying hand on Rimmer’s back as he joined the others in the Rovers Return, but it was he who needed the reassurance. There he was, the other him, sat across the table from a fellow actor. No dreadlocks, dressed in a non-leather jacket and trousers like the ordinary, non-space bum 21st-century Earth resident he was, mouth hanging open in shock.

“You’re the only one that can help us, man,” he told his doppelgänger gravely.

“I’ve heard about these,” Craig Charles muttered. “They’re called flashbacks. Flashbacks.” Having thus calmed himself, he rounded on them. “I know you don’t exist.”

“Okay, no need to rub it in!” huffed the Cat.

Rimmer leaned a little into the hand at his back; Lister returned the comforting pressure. “Just give us the address of whoever created us, and we’ll jump into Starbug and be out of here.”

“ _Starbug?_ ”

Lister couldn’t help a furtive smile at Craig Charles’ face. Had he worn a similar expression when he’d found out that he and the other bloke (Chris?) would have to act out a romantic storyline in the upcoming series?

A romantic _storyline_. The upcoming _series_. This was what their life was now.

\------

“I’m surprised you didn’t find me sooner.”

“It’s not an easy thing to find your creator.” Rimmer surprised himself with this insightful comment. Then again, none of his comments were, strictly speaking, of his own making.

“And how can he assist you?”

Lister stepped forward. “We want more life,” he said forcefully. “Smegger.”

The Creator shook his head. “A series cancellation sequence can’t be revised once it’s established.”

“What about all the loose ends? Like whether I’ll ever get back home? And me and Rimmer?”

_You responsible for his life, but you do nothing. You think only of you._

Rimmer took a deep breath. He should have been more pleased that Lister was pleading on behalf of their relationship, and yet - 

“He’s only been back for a few months. We’ve only just got started!”

“I grew weary of you,” the Creator replied. “And you, gentlemen, should be thankful that you got started at all. Quite a few characters never arrive at such a happy conclusion to their story arc.”

_This is your fault. You killed him._

Maybe if the story had unfolded differently, they wouldn’t be here, reduced to begging not to be killed off.

_His body lives, but inside he is dead._

Maybe he had never been meant to return to Red Dwarf.

\------

”Whoa, whoa, hang on a minute. Are you saying the creature in the water tank, the one that inked us, was another Despair Squid?”

“Except this time, our natural defences are fighting back,” Kryten explained. “Our previous encounter with the creature must have strengthened our antibodies. You see how we’re still here in the hallucination, yet we’re fully aware of it? It’s giving us an option.”

“To choose between this reality and ours?” Rimmer asked.

“Exactly, sir.”

Part of Lister wanted to shout with relief. He hadn’t really killed a person. They weren’t going to be executed. Their lives were their own again. On the other hand, he couldn’t deny that some aspects of this reality, smegged-up as it was, were tempting. He could be around people again, have children…granted, it probably wasn’t the best choice for Rimmer. They’d need to discuss it.

“Hey, what’s happening to me?”

“We must be returning to reality! Sir - ”

Cat and Kryten faded away.

“And then there were two.” Lister walked over to Rimmer and took his hands. They were shaking. “So? What’s keeping _you_ here?” he asked, trying to keep his tone light.

Rimmer shrugged. “How should I know? That’s probably why, actually. Me not knowing my own mind,” he said very quickly; his voice was shaking, too. “What about you? Are you staying?”

 _As though ours were two completely separate existences._ Lister stood on tiptoes and kissed Rimmer gently. And once again, and again, and again and again. Rimmer sagged against a bedpost, accepting but not responding.

“Why are you being like this?” Lister choked out in frustration. “Listen, we can go back. Is that what you want? Then tell me. Because I’ll do it. I’ll go with you.”

Rimmer let out a short, bitter laugh. “You wouldn’t. This is Earth.”

“It’s not the real - all right, look, I know it sort of is, we’ve got the option, but…” _But what good is it if I’m left here all alone?_

“Are you dead inside?”

The question knocked Lister completely off course. “Am I _what?_ ”

“Are you dead inside?” Rimmer repeated quietly. His hands started to shake even more violently than before; Lister squeezed them harder, brought them up to his lips one by one. Anything to keep from losing his grip on them.

“Katerina,” Rimmer finally said. “She said I had killed you. That I was thinking only of me.”

 _No._ “That was just the squid talking.”

“Was it? It’s like I said earlier. Stuck in deep space, no other humans around, just me and the other two for company? That’s hardly your dream life.”

“That’s…it doesn’t matter. I’ve been happy with you.”

“Clearly not as happy as you could be.”

Lister shook his head, fighting back the flood of tears that threatened to drench his face. He didn’t want their story to end here. Real or not, they couldn’t fizzle out on some shaky plot development. Why didn’t Rimmer see that?

“It’s true that I have bad days,” he confessed hesitantly. “You’re right, our life isn’t exactly all I imagined, and sometimes…” _Sometimes it does feel pointless. The emptiness of space gets to you. But._ “The thing is, Rimmer, it’s _our_ life, because you’re _living_ it with me. And I want us to keep living it, wherever we go.”

Rimmer’s eyes met his steadfast gaze at last. “She was right about one thing,” he whispered. “I love you.”

 _I love you too, you idiot!_ Lister might have forgotten to say it out loud in the storm of kisses and sobs that followed; luckily, Rimmer didn’t seem to mind too much. 

“When we get back,” Lister murmured into his ear, “I want to make love to you. Properly. Will you let me?”

“Yes,” he said after a beat. “If you let me, er…let’s not discuss that here.”

“Why not?” Lister pulled back to smile beguilingly at him. “People aren’t actually watching us, you know. Which means we can say and do whatever we want.”

Rimmer pulled a face over his shoulder at the Creator’s lifeless body. “ _He’s_ in here.”

Lister sighed dramatically. “Oh, all right, I guess it can wait till we’re home.”

Rimmer held out a steady hand. Lister took it, and they walked out the double doors together.


End file.
